


The Amber of the Moment

by parisian_girl



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 17:24:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14477595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parisian_girl/pseuds/parisian_girl
Summary: A golden snapshot of the morning after the night before. Set straight after S1 ep11 Blood & Circuses.





	The Amber of the Moment

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first foray into writing for a few years - third fandom lucky, right?! - and my first time writing for these characters, but I've just about fallen in love and after reading my way through pretty much the entire backlog of fan fiction, I couldn't not do it! Just a short one to start with, written around 3am while listening to Ashley Chambliss nakedsongs album on a loop (if you don't know it, go check it out, I'll wait ;)). Hope you enjoy :).

_Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why ~ Kurt Vonnegut._

_*_

_I dismiss the charges._

The words seeped into his consciousness, as soft and as insistent as the golden early morning light that tugged at his eyelids and bathed his cheek in warmth. For a moment he lay, his body and mind savouring the sweet moment in between waking and dreaming, reluctant to move either way and sleepily believing that his mind was wandering. Something, though, wasn’t right. The sunlight never usually hit his face in the mornings. The sheets that caressed his skin felt strange. Even the faint scent hanging in the air, although it was somehow familiar, seemed as if it belonged somewhere else. Not in his bedroom.

_You can’t_.

Cautiously, he opened one eye, and as he turned his face over on the pillow it was as if someone had flung open the curtains - the very opulent curtains, he now realised, that definitely weren’t his - and let the sunlight flood the room. Memories and images and snapshots of conversation from the night before assaulted his mind and his senses, but all he could do was gaze at her, still fast asleep on the pillow next to his.

_I should go._

He hadn’t wanted to, but suddenly he’d felt unsure, nervous. Clumsy, almost, like an overgrown teenager who didn't know what to do with himself. She was grieving, weighed down by a burden of guilt that wasn’t hers to carry, and he hadn't known what to do to comfort her; logically, he knew that nothing he said would ease her mind, but he had been surprised at the sharp, almost painful need he felt to take it from her, to protect her, to make it better.

_Please stay?_

Her hand had seemed tiny as it reached out to him, asking him to please not let her be alone tonight. He’d taken it, and he remembered the jolt he’d felt as his large, slightly calloused fingers closed gently over her pale, childlike ones. They had fit so well together.

_Miss Fisher?_

He’d queried it, not wanting to make her feel any worse - instinctively he’d understood what it had cost her to ask. Phryne Fisher did not do vulnerable, not if she could help it. But his mind had been swimming suddenly, drowning in firelight and pink silk and deep, deep eyes, and he’d needed to know what she wanted because he was beyond thinking in any rational way.

_I don’t want to wake up alone, Jack_.

He’d understood. He knew all too well the horrors that the night could hold when you were alone, tormented with thoughts and memories and what-ifs and should-haves. He knew what it was like to wake up bathed in a cold sweat and shaking, crying out for someone who would never hear the call. He understood the fear of trying to sleep, because sometimes dreams were worse than reality, and he knew that sometimes it was better not to grieve alone.

She’d done enough of that.

He watched her now as she slept on, the covers rising and falling gently with her breathing. A lock of mussed black hair fell over her cheek and traces of the tears of the night before lingered around her eyes; he resisted the urge to reach over and brush the hair to one side, to kiss her slightly swollen lids. That wasn’t, he reminded himself, what she had wanted him for, although he knew that he wouldn’t have resisted if she had.

When, he wondered, had he stopped believing in his heart that a marriage was still a marriage?

Slowly, carefully, he shifted to prop himself up on one elbow and gazed down at her. She looked peaceful, serene, so different from the vibrant whirlwind that characterised her waking persona and that always left him reeling, and he sucked in a quiet breath as his eyes took in her pure, naked, vulnerable beauty for the first time. He had never allowed himself to think about this moment, and the realisation that he had wanted it - and he now had it - made his head spin and his heart dance. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he was wondering vaguely what to do - would she still want him there when she woke? Should he at least go downstairs and allow her to emerge in her own good time? - but he didn’t move.

He knew, better than anyone, that moments like this were too precious.

  
*

  
One by one, Phryne’s senses began to stir. The faint glow of sunrise against her tightly shut eyes told her that it was far too early to reasonably be awake, and the pressure on the other side of the bed meant that someone else was there. She stayed still, willing her consciousness back to sleep, hoping that by the time she woke up again later he - whoever he was - would have taken the hint and left, but something wasn’t right. Neither her legs nor her head ached, which meant that she probably hadn’t been out dancing the night before, and her eyes felt puffy, as if she’d been crying a lot. All indicators that she shouldn’t have a gorgeous young man in her bed, and yet she could feel the soft warmth of another body. She could, now that she was a bit more alert, sense eyes watching her, and she could smell traces of a scent that was somehow familiar.

_Please stay?_

She squeezed her eyes tighter shut, unwilling to open them before she had untangled the threads that were beginning to weave across her mind…brightly coloured threads of knife throwers and greasepaint and snakes and strongmen. A gun, pointed squarely at her chest. Murdoch Foyle, burning alive in a coffin. Her sister, and a feeling of being crushed alive with guilt.

_I don’t want to wake up alone, Jack._

The fog in her brain started to lift. She hadn’t wanted to be on her own, and she had asked him to stay. And yet instead of the prickly embarrassment that she would have expected to feel after such a display of vulnerability, she had to fight down the wry chuckle that bubbled up in her stomach.

Of all the ways she had imagined getting Jack Robinson into her bed, this hadn’t been one of them.

Without opening her eyes, she tentatively reached out. The hand that enveloped her own told her she wasn’t imagining it, and she held on tightly, willing the moment not to pass. His scent filled her, driving away the raw emptiness that came with thoughts of Janey and warming her like the sun that was now streaming through the slight gap in the curtains, and his rough skin felt so perfect on hers. It didn't matter that he was in pyjamas - a spare pair that she guessed Mr Butler must have placed at the foot of the bed, and she made a mental note to thank him later - or that they had shared nothing more racy than a goodnight kiss on the cheek. She had fallen asleep with his arms around her and she hadn’t dreamed.

Slowly, she opened one eye.

“Good morning, Miss Fisher”.

The low rumble of his voice sent a shiver through her, and she smiled. It was a familiar reaction by now, but one that had never felt so… _delicious._

“You’re in my bed, Jack. I think we can probably dispense with the formalities”.

She sensed rather than saw his half-smile, and she snuggled further down into the pillows, her own smile spreading and her limbs stretching. Her other eye opened and she looked up, intending to make some joke about him having gone above and beyond the call of duty, to ask him if he wanted coffee, to thank him, to tell him that if he looked in the bathroom he would probably find that Mr B had placed a razor and a spare towel there because that was what Mr B did, but the words died in her throat as she realised she was basking in a gaze that could only be described as loving. Tender. Slightly amused, and so typical of Jack that it made her want to cry all over again.

When, she wondered, had he fallen in love with her?

When had she fallen in love with him?

And how long would it have taken her to notice?

“Good morning….Phryne”.

She nodded slowly, and reached up. His cheek felt warm under her hand, slightly scratchy where he hadn’t shaved, and she allowed her thumb to slowly stroke the contours of his cheekbone.

“That’s better”.

She wondered if she would ever stop the goosebumps that came with the sound of her name on his lips, but in that moment, she didn’t care. It was all she wanted to hear.

She knew, better than anyone, that moments like that were too precious.

 

 


End file.
